At the Rome North Film Festival (that’s what we call it in Rome), a steady stream of armoured vans

These young people have no values any more, my dear lady! Behind the massive protest involving vandalism lies nothingness, a void, ‘an alarming lack of values’ (quote). Everyone is saying it—in the pub, on talk shows, in social media rows, in Sunday editorials and Monday follow-ups: the sociologist with the scarf, the minister, the parish priest with the podcast, the headteacher on TG1, the all-you-can-eat pundit who brandishes the word ‘maranza’ and won’t let it go. These young people take to the streets, not for the Cause, but for the Louis Vuitton shop window, the Decathlon shelves, the Air Max on offer at Foot Locker. Three minutes of looting and they are gone: a TikTok reel before the tear gas even arrives, hoping it will go viral – the ‘meme-driven desire’, as Girard would have said had he had Instagram; that is what really makes the world go round.

Demonstrators have taken to the streets over a Moncler jacket seized in the name of the ‘cost of living crisis’, while Feltrinelli’s books remain unread, scattered on the ground and kicked aside as obstacles. Back in the days of proletarian expropriation, one would at least depart with a Lukács under the arm, a Marcuse, an Adorno, a *Workers and Capital*, an *Anti-Oedipus* – hefty tomes, useful even for defending oneself against the police. That was class consciousness. This group, however, simply does not know what to do with books. Then there are the commentators on the left, for whom protest is always sacrosanct. Here, too, is the grand return of the word ‘System’ – oldies but goldies, dusted off and bandied about everywhere: young people may well be without values, but at least they’re there to tell us that ‘the system must be brought down’, dismantled, deconstructed from within, ‘de-structured’, like fusion carbonara. ‘Young people are smashing shop windows – not just the physical ones, but also those of the narrative of power’ (you might think I am joking, but that is exactly how I read it in Il Fatto Quotidiano). And yet, if you are genuinely seeking values, do not waste your time in the streets, do not overanalyse, and do not get bogged down in lengthy sociological dissections of smashed shop windows. Go to the cinema. Or switch on Rai 1. There’s plenty there to re-educate our young people: a constant stream of films that promote values – such as those paraded last week at the North Rome Film Festival (that’s what we call it in Rome, because on any weekday afternoon it’s technically out of reach for anyone who doesn’t already live in that area). While the shop-window smashing is said to reflect a ‘society without values’, the red carpets are said to embody the accumulation of values – or rather, ‘surplus value’, as that chap would say: femicides, the rule of law, bullying, emotional education, mafias, anti-mafia groups, women’s emancipation, exemplary lives, martyrologies, beatifications. In the streets, ‘no values’; on the screen, far too many. And as usual, never a middle ground.

The feel-good film, destined to be one of those ‘films-that-should-be-shown-in-schools’, is certainly nothing new – far from it. However, at times the phenomenon can spiral somewhat out of control. As early as September, we had entered what Avvenire dubbed “the month of Carlo”, referring to Acutis, the teenage saint, patron of the Internet, “the cyber-apostle who spoke to millennials” – roughly the same age as the Maranza crowd in the town squares: a TV film, a cinema documentary, a reprint of his mother’s book (Il segreto di mio figlio), and the twentieth anniversary of his death. Piemme for print, Mediaset for video, Cannes for exports: a textbook example of vertical integration, a hagiography produced along the supply chain. In the film, Carlo is a saint at six, at eleven, at fifteen. Three sizes of the same halo, not a single crack, not a single less edifying aspect. A paragon of virtue in its purest form – and one of the most unbeatable. At the press conference, Truffaut was even invoked—the director behind the film that improves life, ours and that of our children—though not the one who said, ‘If you want to send a message, use Western Union; don’t make a film’ (Samuel Goldwyn). The film about Acutis was, however, a huge success. It is, as has been written, indicative ‘of our need for values’ (there they are!). It was also a somewhat unexpected success because, as they said, Acutis is no Padre Pio and “his devotion was not ancient, well-established or global” – even though it certainly is global: as I write this piece, I’m reading about thousands of people queuing in Brazil to see a strand of his hair.

The fact is that with Padre Pio, one had to be somewhat from the local area, whereas Acutis became a saint online; he was born global. This exemplary film-story does not contradict the panic over young people lacking values; if anything, it is the fundamental photographic negative: the young man who uses the internet for good whilst others use it to film looting. The saint in a tracksuit who brings food to the homeless while others are ransacking Prada. The film’s director, Giacomo Campiotti—the same director behind Ennio Doris—states that Carlo Acutis is a pure hero, the right saint at the right time, in a society sliding towards violence and selfishness. In short, he is the antithesis of the ‘maranza’: the son that adults would like to have, watched by adults on a Sunday evening, whilst their own children are who knows where. The actor cast to play the young saint was, in fact, already a familiar face in the world of films promoting civic values: Samuele Carrino had previously starred in Il ragazzo dai pantaloni rosa, thus an exemplary victim in another exemplary film. Films that promote values have their own stars.

Sunday evenings featuring uplifting biopics have now become something of an institution: a week before "Acutis", here is a softened, sweetened, pro-government "Guareschi", achieving a 16 per cent audience share – which is no mean feat these days. Acutis is an extreme version of this – more successful, more saintly – which has even earned praise from the Rosario Livatino Study Centre, just as preparations were underway at the Rome Film Festival for the premiere of Livatino, a film by Michele Placido – the blessed man reviewing the saint, and the circle that closes all by itself.

Livatino – Il giudice e i suoi assassini has its roots in Renaissance patronage. It was conceived, the director explains, following a telephone call with Pope Francis, who asked whether this story about the judge was true. It was then christened at the premiere by Mattarella, as if by a concordat. Placido invokes “the great socially conscious cinema of Rosi, Petri and Damiani, which is lacking today”. But that cinema was about investigation, suspicion and accusation. Here, the institutions are in the front row, on the red carpet, blessing the film. The result is a game of winks and mutual flattery: at the start of Livatino, the judge’s parents watch La Piovra on television, witnessing the death of Commissioner Cattani – that is, the young Placido – a trauma for an entire generation, including the reviewer. Three Placidos appear in the same scene: the elder directing, the young one dying on television, and Placido’s son—Brenno—portraying the judge’s best friend. Also at the Festival, still on the subject of judges, is Un atto d’amore, a documentary by Stefano Ribaldi and Maria Falcone, who also directs and serves as president of the Falcone Foundation, chronicling thirty years of the Foundation’s work. It is a triumph of mannerism.

The film Portavalori functions much like the armoured van of the same name and arrives at the cinema under escort: the family at the front, the Foundation and the Film Commission on either side, and the institutions in their official cars at the rear. Bringing up the rear, the critics reserve judgement: it may not be a masterpiece, but it is nonetheless ‘urgent’, ‘necessary’ and an ‘important civic testimony’. Take, for example, Giulia Cecchettin’s film on femicide, another ‘highly anticipated’ highlight of the Festival. In Se domani non torno, directed by Paola Randi and starring Filippo Timi as the father, Giulia’s killer has no face and no name: he is ‘him’, a pronoun. A noble idea: to deprive the culprit of the limelight that the news reports have already bestowed upon him. Yet the film, in its didactic ambitions, seeks above all to teach viewers to recognise the warning signs (obsessive jealousy, a need for control, psychological blackmail) and then refrains from showing the very relationship in which those signs manifested themselves. It is like a guide to fungi without illustrations of poisonous mushrooms, so as not to shock the reader too much. You come away knowing they exist; what they are, who knows. In She Said, a film about the #MeToo movement, Weinstein was only glimpsed from behind; you could hear him on the phone – in short, he didn’t exist. The film was hailed as a necessary piece of work and, as such, was largely ignored. By contrast, the British, with Adolescence, have demonstrated how such subjects can be handled: four hours with a young boy who killed a classmate, confronting him directly, one long take after another. The film has even been introduced in schools, provided by Netflix with Downing Street’s blessing. The issue is not where the film ends up, but how it is made.

In the Cecchettin case, the message is embedded in the press conference: to support sex and emotional education in schools. Gino Cecchettin, moreover, had already criticised the Valditara bill in an interview with Domani. In short, a film in the form of an amendment, with a title that says it all: Se domani non torno is, in fact, a variation on – and an offshoot of – Cortellesi’s now-iconic C’è ancora domani: over thirty-five million in box office takings, school groups queuing up, that finale with women queuing to vote for the first time. Since then, “tomorrow” has become not only a daily occurrence but also an inexhaustible source of civic titles: C’è ancora domani, Se domani non torno, È già domani, and the manifesto-book by Silvia Salis, Mayor of Genoa, which has just been published by Feltrinelli – even though no rioter took it away after smashing the shop windows. “Tomorrow” as a brand. ‘Tomorrow’ in response to our young people’s cry that ‘they’ve stolen our future’. ‘Tomorrow’ also as a more concrete and attainable goal than the ‘sun of the future’, which instead was lost in an unspecified future (and besides, ‘see you tomorrow’, as they say in Rome).

It is still too early to imagine how many spin-offs Cortellesi’s film will generate. But in the meantime, also at this festival brimming with values, the closing event featured "Ricordati ragazza", a documentary written and directed by Claudia Gerini. It is produced by Luce Cinecittà and Rai Cinema in collaboration with the Chamber of Deputies, which, for the first time in its history, is participating in the production of a film – who knows under which budget heading. The pretext: the 80th anniversary of women’s first vote and the Constituent Assembly. The plot: Matilde, an 18-year-old, would rather be at the seaside with her friends on the day of her first vote. It is her mother and grandmother who accompany her on a journey to discover the achievements that made that gesture possible, through a mix of archive footage and re-enacted scenes. At the screening, representing the production company, Anna Ascani spoke of fuelling the ‘fire of equality’. Meanwhile, Claudia Gerini—who a few years ago declared she hated films solely about women—is moved as she quotes Luciana Castellina: “Being a woman is a lifelong endeavour” (Castellina, a girl from Parioli—in North Rome, in fact—whom politics had discovered all by itself, without needing her grandmother). In short, on one side are the value-less youths who ransack Prada. On the other is Matilde, who, poor thing, hasn’t yet acquired any values, but there are her mum and grandmother – and, behind them, the parliamentary Republic – to patiently explain them to her. The young person as the recipient, the adult as the sender, the institution as the commissioner.

Because, ultimately, the real question is always the same: who commissions it? Why so many? Is there really an audience for this sort of thing, apart from school groups herded off to the cinema? At the heart of it is often a book by a family member, which comes with the full package: the rights, the moral endorsement, the promotion already sorted, and an audience already moved to tears. Giulia’s father (Rizzoli), Carlo’s mother (Piemme), Farouk Kassam’s father (Rai1, in November, the kidnapping story spread over three evenings), Giovanni Falcone’s sister (in person, as the narrator). The sequence is always the same: the bereavement, the book, the foundation, the film, the schools, the anniversary, Mattarella. A circular economy of memory.

Let’s be clear: every family has the right – indeed, the duty – to keep a name alive. But isn’t it a bit anachronistic to keep thinking that the old feature film – as they used to say – perhaps even as compulsory viewing in schools, is the most effective tool? Especially at a time when eighteen-year-olds consume cinema in fifteen-second snippets, in front of six screens all lit up. And might it not be the case that, alongside the mission, something else is creeping in? A touch of artistic ambition, a hint of narcissism, the pleasure of finding oneself on the red carpet, under the flashbulbs, with a heap of values to display instead of a designer dress. Cinema, as we know, is contagious, like measles. Foundations become production companies, foundation chairwomen become narrators, actresses become state-appointed directors, and the Chamber of Deputies becomes an associate producer. Ministers, undersecretaries, governors and councillors sit in the front row. The film industry, which has ever-dwindling funds, gladly opens its doors to those who arrive with a script, funding and a seal of approval in their pockets. The only question that remains is who will actually watch all this ‘cinema of values’.